It had been just over two months since Amaryllis and Regulus had left Hogwarts. In that time Amaryllis had done what had been expected of her. She wasn't thrilled by it, as many would be, but that didn't mean she didn't want the child growing inside of her. It was still her child after all, and she was going to give it the best life she knew how.

"Amy, what are you doing?" Regulus asked her when he noticed she was just sitting at the table and staring out in front of her.

She'd been sitting there a lot over the past few days. The days since she'd found out. She was, in her head trying to come up with the best way to tell her husband what she'd done. Because really, she didn't think he'd be happy.

"I'm thinking." She responded still not making eye contact with him. "I need to tell you something and I don't think you'll be very happy."

Regulus was confused by this. He didn't think there was anything Amaryllis could do to make him angry with her. Things were strong between them.

"I'm sorry, I really am." She told him.

"What did you do?" He asked.

"I made deal." She explained her speech getting faster the further along she got. "The Dark Lord came to visit me just before we were married. I made a deal with him so he'd cover my mark for the wedding. I knew there was a chance Sirius or one of his friends could be there and if they saw it I'd be arrested. I couldn't have that happen."

"What did you do?" He asked again.

Amaryllis had been dreading this. She didn't want to have to tell him. But she knew it wasn't fair on him.

"I'm pregnant." She said.

Regulus just stared at her. He didn't have any words for what she'd just told him.

"He said I must at least be with child a year after our marriage." She explained.

There was silence for a moment as Regulus tried to process what Amaryllis had told him.

"We never agreed on this." He shouted at her.

If it weren't for the world she was in, she would have certainly recoiled the volume of his voice. However, having to act the way she had been meant that she didn't even flinch. She was so much better at concealing her shock.

"It was this or death." She responded smoothly looking him directly in the eye. "I'd rather be stuck with a child than be killed for not producing one."

"You didn't have to make that deal." He told her.

"Oh yeah and be arrested on my wedding day." She snapped standing up, so she was closer to his level. "That sounds like it would have been amazing."

"So instead you're going to have a baby in the middle of a war." He pointed out.

Amaryllis sighed and went back to sitting down. She needed to relax. If she wasn't relaxed she didn't think there would be any way for her to convince Regulus to relax.

"I know it's not ideal." She responded. "But it saves both our lives. Don't you want to have children?"

"Of course, but once the war's over." He said.

"And if we get arrested?" She asked.

"It's worse if we have a child." He said.

"I want to know, that no matter what I'm going to be able to have someone out there that loves me." She explained. "If you're taken from me I want something to hold on to."

Amaryllis stood up as she spoke. She knew it was getting ridiculous, all this standing up and sitting down but her mood kept changing. She kept calming down slightly then he would say something making her annoyed again.

"What about your family?" He asked her.

"What family, Reg?" She asked him. "As far as I know you're my only family. My family probably thinks I'm dead."

"What if something happens?" He asked. "What will happen to our child then?"

"I'll figure something out." She said. "Please, we have to do this. I can't do this alone."

Amaryllis looked down at the ground. She couldn't bring herself to look Regulus in the face. He sighed and sat down beside her.

"We will figure this out, I promise." He told her taking her hand in his. "I love you."

"I love you too." She said softly looking back up into his eyes.

It was time. After a few more weeks, after Amaryllis had started seeing a healer, both her and Regulus were once again called to meet with the Dark Lord. But things were different this time. This time she had to tell him about her child. It was better for her to tell him now rather than waiting. It would just make the next little while better.

As they entered the location for the meeting Amaryllis did something she didn't normally do at meetings, she reached down to take Regulus' hand. Affection, even between those the Dark Lord approved of, was frown upon at meetings. But what was she meant to do? She was nervous. Terrified even.

What if she hadn't done things correctly? Not that she could think of a way she could have done it wrong.

What if it wasn't what he wanted?

Did he want them to have a son? That wasn't something she could control. There was no way to tell if she would have a son or daughter.

But none of that mattered to start. First they would listen to what the Dark Lord had to say. No news that anyone had could ever be more important than whatever he had to say.

To Amaryllis the meeting seemed to drag on forever. However it wasn't any longer than normal. To her it only felt longer. Her growing worry that she hadn't done it right was filling her stomach. But worry wasn't good. She shouldn't be stressing. Stress wasn't good for the baby.

It took a while for meeting to finish, but then they normally did. After it was finished though Amaryllis sent Regulus a look telling him they needed to go see the Dark Lord. They need to speak to him.

"My Lord." Amaryllis said as they approached him.

She had, in her hand, a note from her appointment with the healer. It was her proof. She knew he could probably do some spell to prove what she was saying but she felt better knowing she was bringing her own proof.

"We have completed the task you gave me." She told him.

Coming up with the best way of telling him was a struggle. She hadn't been sure of the best way to approach the situation. It was a strange thing to have to tell someone.

"I am with child." She finished. "Almost 2 months."

Regulus wasn't going to say anything. It wasn't his place. Sure he was a part of it, but he hadn't known what she was doing. He hadn't known about the deal.

The Dark Lord didn't say anything. There wasn't anything he needed to say. The couple knew he was accepting of it and that was all they needed.

After almost five more months both Amaryllis and Regulus realised that they needed to settle on a name for their child. However the process of coming up with a name was harder than either of them had thought.

Neither of them could agree on something they liked. The entire discussion of names had always been so stilted. Neither could suggest something the other liked.

"What about Kaelan?" Amaryllis suggested to her husband having glanced back to the vegetables she was cutting after glancing down at the names book she had been slowly going through.

While she knew she could use magic to cook she still preferred cooking by hand, doing everything herself. She found it relaxing. Especially at a time where she really shouldn't be stressing.

"I don't know." Regulus responded from his place beside the stove.

Since the two of them had been living together Amaryllis had been teaching him how to live without a house elf to do everything for him. It was strange to her. She'd always been shown how to do things. Small things she couldn't even remember learning were things she'd had to show Regulus.

"Do you even care about your child's name?" Amaryllis asked putting down the knife and looking up.

"Of course I care." Regulus said turning around to look at her. "It is my child of course."

"You haven't reacted at all to anything I've suggested so far." She told him.

"Are you aware of my family's naming traditions?" He asked her. "From Mother's lessons."

"Of course." She responded.

Regulus just stared at her for a while. He didn't say anything to her, waiting for her to realise.

"Oh, right, I forgot." She realised picking up the book she had been going through and leaving the room.

Regulus turned back to the stove; he couldn't let the food burn, but he had no idea what Amaryllis was doing. It didn't take long for her to come back with a different book in her hand. It was his old Astronomy textbook.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" He asked her as she sat back down, now breathing heavily.

"How else am I meant to come up with astrological names without this book?" She questioned. "I wasn't brought up with astronomy as a part of everyday life."

He glanced over at his wife. She had a point. Her life had been quite different to his before they first met. His life had been tailored to almost this exact moment, to him carrying on the family name. Especially after Sirius' betrayal.

"Although I do remember Mum's favourite constellation." She said as she flicked through the book. "It doesn't seem to be in here though."

"What do you mean?" He asked, turning around to glance over at her.

"Mum always loved the constellation Carina." Amaryllis explained. "We used to go camping in the backyard, in the woods out the back of our house. It was beautiful out there. There was this clearing that we use to go to about a ten-minute walk in. After we'd set everything up we would lay a blanket on the ground and lay down and look up at the sky. It was calming."

Regulus stopped what he was doing to look at her. Hadn't she just said she hadn't had the same exposure to astronomy as him?

"But I thought you said…" He started.

"It wasn't often." She said cutting in. "Maybe once or twice a year. Mum and Dad were always so busy."

They shared a look. It was something they could both relate to. Neither had had consistent affection from their parents. It just wasn't how either of their families worked. It was something neither of them wanted repeat.

"I don't want to be like my family." Regulus said. "I don't want our child to have a name that anyone else has."

"You do realise how hard it will be to keep to the naming tradition if that's what you really want?" Amaryllis told him.

"Carina is perfect." He said. "My family hasn't cared about the southern stars. I can't think of anyone named that."

She smiled as she looked at him. That was all she had wanted. She wanted them to come to an agreement. He'd finished his cooking and had turned off the stove moving the pot out of the way.

"What if we aren't traditional?" She told him as she stood up placing her hand on the page she had just flipped to.

"How do you mean?" He asked.

"Not using the name of a star or constellation." She explained. "Just how it's interpreted."

Regulus nodded at his wife moving over closer to her.

"Sagittarius, the Archer." He said as he looked at the open page.

It had been nearly nine months since Amaryllis had told the Dark Lord about her pregnancy and now she had a baby in her arms. Her baby. She'd had a child. A daughter. Her beautiful baby girl.

As she sat, with her sleep baby in her arms, in her room waiting for her husband to return from the night's mission she wondered what people would think of her if he died. The worry was becoming a nightly occurrence for her.

Every night he went out she worried.

She worried that he would die.

She worried that he would be captured.

She worried that he would disappear.

But there was no way to tell what she would do if any of those things happened. It was all just too unpredictable. Everything about her situation was too unpredictable.

The front door slammed waking the sleeping child. The room filled with the baby's screaming.

"You woke her." Amaryllis snapped at her husband as a shadowed filled the doorway.

"Really?" Regulus asked her as he stood in the doorway. "That's the first thing you say to me."

She glanced up at him. Looking over his frame she noticed how dishevelled he looked. His robes, which had been perfectly clean when he left, were now hanging off his frame strangely with the sleeves pulled up well past his elbows. While his robes were black, a colour that very rarely showed stains, there were odd dark patches on across them. Patches she knew would be blood.

"What happened?" She asked still taking his entire appearance in.

As he stepped out of the doorway into the room, her eyes were drawn to the now blood red mark on his arm. A mark that six hours early had been a harsh black against his pale skin.

"I don't know how much longer this can go on." He said pulling the bulk of his robes over his head.

Once his bloodied robes were removed he stepped closer to his wife kissing her then placing a soft kiss to his still screaming child's head.

"I'm sorry." Amaryllis said as he changed into his pyjamas.

"You're lucky." Regulus said climbing into the bed beside her and taking the baby from her arms. "It's getting worse."

"I'm sorry." She repeated. "I didn't mean to snap at you. I'd just gotten her to sleep."

"Been giving your mother trouble, have you Carina?" He whispered to his little girl who was slowly falling asleep again.

Amaryllis just glared at Regulus taking her baby back and placing her into her cot.

"Your mother sent us another letter." She said as she walked back over to the bed. "She wants to meet Carina."

"I don't want Mother anywhere near her." He said as he pulled her in next to him. "I don't want Carina involved in any of this."

She didn't need to admit her agreement. It was obvious.